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The Confederate Stories Of America: The Short-Story Cycle And The Representation Of The American South, Ikuko Takeda
The Confederate Stories Of America: The Short-Story Cycle And The Representation Of The American South, Ikuko Takeda
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation examines the ways in which the short-story cycle has provided a unique generic framework for representing and investigating the complex interplay of contending forces that constitute what we think of as the American South. Often confused with a collection of disparate short stories or a novel, the short-story cycle is a collection of short stories in which each story is independent, but simultaneously interrelated to one another. Although the South has produced a number of short-story cycles or linked story collections, scholars have not paid much attention to the connection between the genre/form and the region. I consider, …
The Exemplary Spartacus: Reception, Adaptation, And Reconstruction, Benjamin Franklin Howland
The Exemplary Spartacus: Reception, Adaptation, And Reconstruction, Benjamin Franklin Howland
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
My project, “The Exemplary Spartacus: Reception, Adaptation, and Reconstruction,” focusses on various representations of the gladiator Spartacus. I assert that Spartacus has almost exclusively been and continues to be an exemplary figure, with an extensive and connected literary tradition, working as an empty signifier in differing temporalities and localities. I draw specific attention to a core issue in the study of Spartacus, namely, the plethora of modern representations of Spartacus in various genres, and the continuing influence these representations exert through their blurring of the historical figure with local themes and ideologies. Each draw from the same ancient sources, infusing …
Immigration, Ethnicity, And Citizenship: The Words And Faces Of The Chinese Of North America, Pengyi Huang
Immigration, Ethnicity, And Citizenship: The Words And Faces Of The Chinese Of North America, Pengyi Huang
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
In this dissertation, I have analyzed the migrant experience of Chinese immigrants in North America through their representation in literature and photography. Each of its three chapters focuses on three major ethnic issues affecting the lives and identity of Chinese immigrants and their offspring in North America: the first concerns the ways in which occupation, home, and family affect the destinies of Chinese immigrants; the second deals with the role of language in the lives of Chinese immigrants and the career of Chinese migrant writers; the third addresses stereotypes about Chinese immigrants and their offspring and the redefinition of their …
A Comparative Case Study: An Examination Of How Literature Assists Children Experiencing A Trauma, Michelle Clare Benoit
A Comparative Case Study: An Examination Of How Literature Assists Children Experiencing A Trauma, Michelle Clare Benoit
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This case study, with four elementary school students as participants, examined the use of books and bibliotherapy when experiencing a traumatic incident. Utilizing fiction books, I explored how literature could be a powerful tool for overcoming life-altering events and circumstances, such as losing a pet, going through a divorce, or dealing with a grandparent who is suffering from Alzheimer's, with a bully in school, or the death of a loved one. Bibliotherapy could also be effective when used with individuals that stutter, children with dyslexia, and children coping with death or a parental mental illness. For this study, the data …
Mark Twain, James Thurber, And David Sedaris: American Literary Humorists, Liz Sills
Mark Twain, James Thurber, And David Sedaris: American Literary Humorists, Liz Sills
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This analysis probes the unique nature of the American Literary Humorist by looking at three exemplary cases of this type of figure: Mark Twain, James Thurber, and David Sedaris. Rather than dissecting their works to the point that they become unfunny, this piece examines their interaction with the times and publics that form their audiences. Doing so allows us to better understand their resonance both during their own times and today and gives us a better look at what really makes them stand out in the history of American letters.
The Imagined After: Re-Positioning Social Memory Through Twentieth-Century Post-Apocalyptic Literature And Film, Amanda Ashleigh Wicks
The Imagined After: Re-Positioning Social Memory Through Twentieth-Century Post-Apocalyptic Literature And Film, Amanda Ashleigh Wicks
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Maurice Halbwachs first proposed a collective approach to memory in the early twentieth century, but the vast majority of subsequent scholarship investigates memory’s social properties from a theoretical point of view. This project instead proposes that memory functions as a social phenomenon in significant and real ways, primarily understood through the social relations that arise within social frameworks, which provide a structure against which people’s memories come together to form important memory-narratives that configure individual and social consciousness. Once people transform memory from individual thought-image into socially structured language, memory takes on social properties. Memory relies upon social frameworks to …
Body Language: Pain In Victorian Literature, Laura Jane Faulk
Body Language: Pain In Victorian Literature, Laura Jane Faulk
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
“Body Language: Pain in Victorian Literature” argues that Victorian authors use the readable sign system of the body and pain to emphasize their characters’ physical features to the reader. As characters physically manifest emotions or experience violence, their appearances change, and these differences depend on physical descriptions. Marks on the body give it texture and depth, creating a layering that encourages the reader to envision and remember it. Character interactions, particularly when they read others’ somatic signs and experience or cause brutality, further flesh out characters, emphasizing their physical presences in the reader’s mind. The somatic sign system depends upon …
Southern Bellas: The Construction Of Mestiza Identity In Southern Narratives, Wendy Aimee Braun
Southern Bellas: The Construction Of Mestiza Identity In Southern Narratives, Wendy Aimee Braun
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This project analyzes representations and self-representations of Mestizas living in areas of the Deep South that lack a significant Latino presence. Incorporating a range of media, I take a comparative approach to Southern cultural narratives and propose a re-reading of these works through an examination of identity formation and cultural negotiation. By centering the Southern Mestiza, this dissertation advances concepts of intersectionality to address the role of region, as well as race and gender, in the representation and experiences of women often overlooked in Southern and U.S. Latino studies. The Introductory chapter summarizes the theoretical framework for the study, including …
From Native To Nation: Copway’S American Indian Newspaper And Formation Of American Nationalism, David Shane Wallace
From Native To Nation: Copway’S American Indian Newspaper And Formation Of American Nationalism, David Shane Wallace
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation argues that the publication of Copway’s American Indian (1851) challenges accepted representations of nineteenth-century American Native peoples by countering popular stereotypes. Interrogating a multiplicity of cultural artifacts at the moment of their meeting and investigating the friction created as they rub against one another within the columns of the periodical, I argue that the texts that contribute to the make-up of Copway’s American Indian are juxtaposed in such a way as to force nineteenth-century readers to reconsider the place of the indigenous inhabitants in the American nation. Seemingly disconnected tidbits of information, presented not individually but as components …
Lillian Fuchs: Violist, Teacher And Composer; Musical And Pedagogical Aspects Of The 16 Fantasy Études For Viola, Teodora Dimova Peeva
Lillian Fuchs: Violist, Teacher And Composer; Musical And Pedagogical Aspects Of The 16 Fantasy Études For Viola, Teodora Dimova Peeva
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This monograph concerns the life and compositions of Lillian Fuchs, one of the foremost American violists. Chapter I separates her career into three areas: performer, teacher, and composer. As a violist, her famous interpretation of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, performed frequently with her brother, violinist Joseph Fuchs, has done much to increase the popularity of music written for violin and viola. As a member of the Musicians’ Guild in New York, she has premiered a substantial number of chamber music works, many of them composed specifically for her. She is one of the first violists to perform the Cello Suites …
Elements Of Mythmaking In Witness Accounts Of Colonial Piracy, Plamen Ivanov Arnaudov
Elements Of Mythmaking In Witness Accounts Of Colonial Piracy, Plamen Ivanov Arnaudov
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Focusing on historical accounts (1684-1734) by English, French, and Spanish witnesses, this dissertation establishes a continuity in fictionalized representations of anti-heroic pirates from the buccaneering period to the Golden Age of Piracy. Informed by history, literary, myth, and performance theory, the analysis identifies significant distortions in reports by observers and participants. The distortions that pertain to mythmaking patterns are classified and analyzed further. Conflicting and ambivalent representations of the pirate as an anti-hero are resolved through the positing of a literary scapegoat hypothesis drawing from René Girard and Joseph Roach. While demonstrating mythical archetypes at work in the construction of …
Heroic Individualism: The Hero As Author In Democratic Culture, Alan I. Baily
Heroic Individualism: The Hero As Author In Democratic Culture, Alan I. Baily
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
My study focuses on the literature of democratic morality, with specific reference to the question of "heroic individualism." I attempt to elucidate the notion of heroic individualism by examining three modern democratic moralists whose work occupies the space between politics and literature: Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Carlyle and Friedrich Nietzsche. In brief, I conclude that the central aspiration of heroic individualism is to bridge the gap between writing and action, the Text and the Voice. The dialogue among Rousseau, Carlyle, and Nietzsche reveals that the problem of writing as action is central to heroic-individualist morality. Each of these authors demonstrates …
Attitudes Des Éducateurs Envers Le Français Et Le Créole: Le Cas D'Haïti, Lesly Jean-François
Attitudes Des Éducateurs Envers Le Français Et Le Créole: Le Cas D'Haïti, Lesly Jean-François
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Language attitudes represent a serious challenge for Haitian education policy makers. This research is the first attempt to study the attitudes of elementary school educators toward the linguistic situation in Haiti. A survey of 154 teachers addressed their attitudes toward language use, preference and choice, and their stereotypes toward other Haitian native speakers. Three instruments (quantitative questionnaire, Match-Guise-Technique, and qualitative questionnaire) were utilized and two Statistical Methods (descriptive and inference), along with Chi-Square were used in order to observe the significance of differences in independent variables. Since Haitian teachers who participated in this study were assumed bilingual, the questionnaire first …
After Scotland: Irvine Welsh And The Ethic Of Emergence, Benjamin George Lanier-Nabors
After Scotland: Irvine Welsh And The Ethic Of Emergence, Benjamin George Lanier-Nabors
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
In “After Scotland: Irvine Welsh and the Ethic of Emergence,” the author’s objective is to mirror what he argues is the Scottish writer Irvine Welsh’s objective: to chart out a future Scotland guided by a generative life ethic. In order to achieve this objective, the author lays open and reengages Scotland’s past, discovers and commits to neglected or submerged materials and energies in its past, demonstrates how Welsh’s work is faithful to those and newly produced materials and energies, and suggests that Welsh’s use of those materials and energies enables readers to envision a new Scotland that will be integral …
Reticent Romans: Silence And Writing In La Vie De Saint Alexis, Le Conte Du Graal, And Le Roman De Silence, Evan J. Bibbee
Reticent Romans: Silence And Writing In La Vie De Saint Alexis, Le Conte Du Graal, And Le Roman De Silence, Evan J. Bibbee
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Apart from discourse and yet somehow part of it, silence is a powerfully ambiguous linguistic phenomenon that blurs the lines between presence and absence. Eluding the material aspects of oral and written language, it is only perceptible as the gaps or spaces between words. Nonetheless, it plays a role in all linguistic productions: although silence itself cannot be directly communicated, it can influence communication. In a literary text, silence may takes on many different guises, including rhythmic hesitations, rhetorical omissions, and poetic oppositions that mimic the audible gaps of spoken language. The visual, aural, and fictional interaction of all these …
Perceptions Of Stereotypes In Hispanic Children's Literature, Nancy Gomez
Perceptions Of Stereotypes In Hispanic Children's Literature, Nancy Gomez
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This study attempted to determine the accurateness of the representation of the Hispanic culture in children’s books. I interviewed ten people: five non-Hispanic and five Hispanic, and I found that the Hispanic people do not seem to pay as much attention to physical features as non-Hispanic people do. However, they were concerned about the portrayal of the Hispanic culture in traditional ways: the traditional roles of women, the traditional dress, the architecture of the houses and the portrayal of the Hispanic people living in rural areas and being extremely poor. It appears that from the timeline covered by the books, …